Loving You
by Notebooked14
Summary: Just Jacob's thoughts of Bella, set after the events of New Moon. Oneshot.


**Loving You**

Bella's giving through a bad time. Not just a normal break-up, but something more agonizing. I eavesdrop regularly on Billy's phonecalls with Charlie, listening quietly outside the door. Feeling my heart sink and my stomach plunge and my heart ache. Bella's not eating, and she's not sleeping. She walks around like a robot, functioning without any life blazing behind her eyes, Charlie says. It's impossible not to worry, to not spend nights awake just thinking about her. The pain I know that's hurting her. I wish I could take it all away. I'd take the agony for her anyday.

When I hear the roar of an old, familiar engine outside the house one day, I remember pausing. Breath caught, hardly able to believe it. I hadn't experienced such a thrill of real happiness in a long time, but my smile fades when I'm close enough to stare into those haunted, hollow eyes. The circles lingering underneath them are black, and she's lost so much weight. Does she realize how her clothes seem to hang on her near-skeletal body, as if they were never removed from coat hangers that morning as she changed? And her face was so white; she was already pale enough before.

So breakable standing before me. It broke my heart, and I told myself to hold it together. Stay strong, a pillar of safety and comfort. The way she looked at me, though. It was enough to take my breath away, and I think it did. She was happy to see me. Slowly, she smiles a real smile, and we both know this is a rare thing. _She's glad she came to see me_. It meant the world to me. All I wanted to do is comfort her there and then. Unsure of how, but it's all I wanted. To gather her up in my arms and hold her tightly, whispering reassuring words in her ear, whispering until she was healed again. I realized it was never going to be that easy. Not when she was so broken.

She never saw the way I watched her. If she did, it would have been too much of a giveaway, and she'd step away, maybe for good. I couldn't risk losing her, and I kept it hidden. Paying attention to everything she said, everything she did, in a way she'd never notice. We clicked together. She was broken, but on the way to recovery, and I was sure to be there every step of the way. I realized there was something else I'm good at, besides mending cars: I could make Bella happy. Nothing else mattered but that girl, and I wanted to make sure everyday was filled with sunshine showering down onto her. I was forced to accept the fact I couldn't restore her to the way she was, but I could try. I was helping her. And, maybe in the end, who knew?

She was so close to letting go, but she had no idea. She had convinced herself that the damage was irreversible, and made no effort to try. There was an air of defeat surrounding her, present in every waking moment. But she never realized she was halfway to normal. She smiled, and she laughed, and got excited over our little plans. Sometimes, she forgot herself, and you could see the hints of happiness just waiting to break through the surface. Time, was what she needed. Time, I told myself.

It wasn't before long that she became every waking moment that mattered. The reason I looked forward to the rising of the sun, because it meant another joyous day spent with her. When she hugged me, I felt like

my heart would explode. I liked the way we fit together, so right. She felt it too, but refused to acknowledge the warmth, the comfort our embraces meant. I enjoyed the feel of my arms tightly wrapped around her,

making sure nothing could harm her, but I enjoyed the feeling of her arms holding onto me more. And of course I realized I was falling in love. She wasn't not ready, but almost. She didn't want those carefully drawn boundaries to be crossed, because she was scared of what that would mean. Scared of opening up fully to somebody else without that crippling fear of abandonment.

I was safe in the knowledge that I would never hurt her. Wild horses couldn't keep me away. I was always a patient kid, and it was patience that got me through. I was content to wait, enjoying watching Bella progress, slowly becoming human once more. My fingers would cross, full of dreams. I was always a dreamer. She _had _said I was sort of beautiful... But she grieves. Sometimes it hits her, overwhelming, and she grieves. Each and every time I was filled with rage. How could Cullen hurt somebody, so kind and pure, this bad? I held her, making sure she knew she was never alone. She never would be. Gradually, Bella would come back to me, smiling a weak smile and apologizing, over and over again. A thousand sorry's running into one another. Bella never had to apologize to me.

Each night, I was filled with renewed hope. Convinced this was going to work, because I was going to make it. I make her happy. I was going to do everything humanly possible in keeping her happy. I promise her that, and I feel good about it. Looking forward to a future where this heartbreak couldn't hurt her. Where everything was easy, and she realized that she loved me too. It was that mental picture that I clung to in times of need. It made me grin, and Bella would ask what I was so happy about, but of course I was careful not to blur any of her lines. Well, I tried. She flinched away from my contact, clinging onto broken fragments of the past. I would regard her with sad eyes, never angry with her, but at Cullen. I imagined what I'd say to him if he ever had the nerve to return. I would yell at him, fight him if I had to. Pummel him into the ground for all he had inflicted...

But this was months ago. A lot has changed, and nothing for the better. Cullen _did _come back, and the events that followed are painful to recall, but I re-open the wounds and relive the torture. Bella going back to him, as if nothing had happened. The months of separation never mattered, our friendship, the slow but sure progress she was making. It was like none of it had ever happened. I was forgotten, because Bella had him back. How could she have allowed him in, letting down all her defences, allowing him into her arms, back into her heart? I had never experienced such anger, but it wasn't anger. Each emotion was razor-sharp, and clawed away at me. I had to remember to breathe, and to smile at something I should've found funny. And it was hard getting to sleep, when it was her face I saw underneath my lids. Not broken as before, but Bella once more - standing beside _him._

I look over her letter, the words are already memorized but it gives me a certain reassurance to make sure they're still there. Knowing her hand has moved across this piece of paper, and I scrunch it up in my fist, careful not to tear it. I didn't want such fury to be directed at Bella. It wasn't her fault, except maybe it was. I accepted nearly all of the blame. It was me that convinced myself with deluded thoughts of a future me and Bella shared together. I had kidded myself into thinking somewhere along the line, she'd fall in love with me too. I expected too much, and these mistakes would never fade away. Somedays, I didn't leave the house. Tucked away from the world, the sting of reality. I didn't want to face the outdoors and have the wind hit my face and remind me once more she wasn't there to spend the day with...

Billy, my poor father, is concerned. I smile a humourless smile when I accidentally overhear a phonecall between him and Charlie. Billy says nearly the same things Charlie said months ago, when Bella was stuck in the depths of the deepest depression imaginable. Now, the situation is reversed. I'm the one in pieces, aching for something that was never mine, while she's happy with somebody else. Someday so bad for her, it causes my hands to shape into fists and I want to scream. I want to hurt him, more than I've ever wanted to hurt another creature - even the redhaired vampire we'd been hunting. I wanted him to leave, and felt immediate guilt after the thought, because how could Bella survive a second trauma like that?

_Bella_, I think, staring out of the window and watching the rain. It's not the future I'm gazing at, but the reality laid right in front me. What I should've been staring at all along. _I'll never regret loving you._

**Just something I had an idea for last night, and I decided I couldn't rest until I had it finished. (:**


End file.
